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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22383538">Parent Trap AU</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_porcupine/pseuds/indigo_porcupine'>indigo_porcupine</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supergirl (TV 2015)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Kid Fic, Parent Trap AU, Summer Camp, half-kryptonians, not Kara/Lena centric, supercorp children</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:00:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,951</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22383538</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_porcupine/pseuds/indigo_porcupine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor had been happily married. Things started going downhill while Lena was pregnant with their twin daughters, so after they were born Lena took one to Metropolis and Kara took the other to Paris. Fourteen years later, the twins run into each other at a summer STEM/robotics competition...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>175</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Kara</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>no beta so please tell me if I messed up<br/>or if you want to beta I guess<br/>Grammar updated as I find issues</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Twin 1 (with Kara)<br/>Aileen - Irish: light<br/>Louise - German: warrior<br/>Zorelle (Kara changed her last name when she moved)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Kara</b>
</p><p>Kara is exhausted, somehow even more so than back when she was Supergirl. Fourteen years of being a working single parent does tend to have that effect, though. Shortly after her daughter Aileen was born, Kara gave up being Supergirl and moved to Paris, where she decided to embrace her knowledge of and love for food and open her own restaurant: Zorelle.</p><p>The first few years were rough, made even rougher by having to raise a toddler. Hot soup and a crawling child don’t mix well. There were a couple times early on when Kara would turn around and trip over her (thankfully invincible) toddler. Eventually she put up a baby gate between the kitchen and Aileen’s corner, which worked until Aileen learned how to climb over it.</p><p>Luckily, Kara managed to convince her best friend Winn to join her in Paris, after he got fired from his last job due to someone else’s carelessness. Their loss is her gain. From that point forward things had improved, mostly due to Winn’s integration of technology into the workings of the restaurant, although Kara would always claim it was due to introducing potstickers to the menu.</p><p>Having Winn around also helped with raising Aileen, even if it was just someone to talk to, since he was not a fan of the whole ‘kid’ thing. Her sister Alex, who she had been super close with before her move, lived in National City and could only come out to Paris a couple times a year. Her adoptive mother, Eliza, used to come out a lot more when Aileen was younger, but she hasn’t been up for travelling much lately. Kara’s cousin flat out refused to visit when she asked, but she can’t really blame him; he claimed he’s too busy, since he had to take over for her when she dropped her Supergirl duties, but Kara suspects that he is holding at least a little bit of a grudge against Kara due to Aileen’s parentage. So yeah, having Winn around is really helpful.</p>
<hr/><p>“Hey Winn,” Kara calls across the kitchen one day at work, which as per usual is empty except for the two of them and Aileen. One of the perks of superspeed is that she can do the job of a dozen or so cooks all by herself.</p><p>Too focused on the food he’s cooking to think of anything but, Winn replies, “sorry, the tomato soup is almost done!”</p><p>“No, not that,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. The soup gets done when it gets done. “I’m worried about Aileen.”</p><p>“Ali?”, Winn asks, moving over to chop the carrots for another soup he’s working on. “She seems like she’s doing fine to me.” He looks over to the corner of the kitchen where Aileen is sitting sitting with headphones in, and continues to chop as he watches her bob her head to the music, pretending to do her English homework but clearly just lost in the music. “Okay, maybe I see your point.”</p><p>“Winn!” Kara shouts, using superspeed to grab the knife Winn is holding before it can cut into his finger. He just turns red and slowly takes the knife back. “Maybe I should be worried about you too,” she jokes. Winn, while he’s gotten a lot better at cooking since they started, has had a lot of incidents requiring stitches and ice packs. </p><p>“Sorry. So just to clarify, you’re concerned about…” Winn prompts.</p><p>“She has so much potential, it’s in her blood. When I was her age, I was already working with my father as a junior member of the science guild and…” Kara hesitates, not wanting to say the name of her ex-wife in front of her daughter. “You know who is like the ultimate science nerd!”</p><p>“You make L-” Winn starts, before Kara smacks him to get him to stop talking. They both look over to Aileen to see if she noticed, but she’s still absorbed in her music. “Fine. You make ‘you know who’ sound like Voldemort.” At Kara’s blank stare, he throws his hands up in desperation. “You are missing so many integral parts of your childhood.”</p><p>Kara rolls her eyes at that. “Well some of us had more important things to learn than useless pop culture at that age, such as English. And stupid human rules and traditions.”</p><p>Winn turns around and points his knife at Kara. “Harry Potter is not useless!” He argues. “There are so many life lessons and morals within-” Winn lowers his knife and goes back to chopping. “Whatever. So Aileen?”</p><p>“Yeah, Aileen,” Kara sighs, looking over to her daughter. “I was trying to come up with something educational that she could actually get excited about, Ali is so much smarter than her classmates, so I think school bores her. We talked about sending her to an accelerated school a couple years ago, but she wanted to stay here with her friends.”</p><p>“And you didn’t want her to go either,” Winn reminds her.</p><p>Kara shrugs. “Aileen will forever be my baby.”</p><p>Winn turns toward Kara and leans back on his counter, narrowly avoiding putting his hand down on his knife. “What if you sent her to some smart people camp over the summer?” He suggests. “Would you be okay being away from her for a couple of weeks?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Maybe?” Kara scrunches up her face, a crinkle forming between her eyebrows. “I guess… as long as she wears her necklace?” Since Aileen was half Kryptonian, right after she was born she was given a necklace that had a red sun radiation emitter hidden in it, so that despite her alien biology, Aileen would be no more powerful than a human. “Do you think <em> she’ll </em> be okay with it?” she asks Winn.</p><p>“I mean, she’ll probably fight you on it a little-”</p><p>“She’s been fighting me on everything lately,” Kara mutters. “And I thought she was bad as a toddler.”</p><p>“You didn’t let me finish. She’ll fight you on it a little… BUT she might fight you less if you let her pick which camp,” Winn finishes with a proud smile.</p><p>After the last dishes of the day are washed and dried, Kara heads out with a distracted Aileen in tow. “Good luck,” Winn calls after her, to which he receives a grimace in response.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Aileen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I may have spent an hour or two researching French schooling for a singular word, because it's so complicated. I'm still only ~80% sure I'm right...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Aileen</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Ali didn’t want to go to camp. She would have been perfectly happy to spend her summer helping her mom out at her restaurant, like she does during the school year after classes. In the summer, she gets to actually help with the cooking sometimes. She loves how cooking is both an art and a science, a perfect blend of her two favorite things. During the school year though, she usually has homework she has to do, but at least she gets to do it while listening to music. She’s read the studies about multitasking and she’s sure her mom has too, but her mom likes to have what are sometimes private conversations with her sous chef, Winn, so Aileen dutifully puts her earbuds in every afternoon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One day, her phone decided to die right after she put her earbuds in. Not wanting to seem like she was paying any attention to what her mom was saying to Winn, she hadn’t pulled them out of her ears, just continued staring at her grammar essay for her English class. She perked up when she heard her name though, and started listening in on the conversation. Ali thought she heard Winn almost say her father’s name, before her mother shushed him and the conversation turned boring. She had been about to tune back out when she heard someone say her name again. Listening in, she determined that Winn was trying to convince her mother to make her go to some science camp. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Not</span>
  </em>
  <span> her idea of fun, even if, as Winn had suggested, she got to pick what camp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Knowing this wasn’t something she would be able to get out of, her mother could be so bullheaded sometimes, she set about looking at camps as soon as she had gotten home. The one she settled on before her mom had even broached the subject was the L-Corp Summer STEM Competition in National City. See, her mom couldn’t argue about this camp being too far away, since her aunt Alex lived right in the heart of the city, and could come help her if something happened. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It would also be a good challenge, since she’d be working with mostly students older than her, since the camp was open to all incoming high schoolers, and she was only thirteen, which would mean that this year she should be in the equivalent of seventh grade in the American system, even though she would be going into her </span>
  <em>
    <span>seconde</span>
  </em>
  <span> year of school this fall, the equivalent of an American sophomore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When her mom finally brought up the idea of a summer science camp, Ali had grumbled and rolled her eyes to keep up appearances, but looking at the camp website had started to get her really excited for the camp. Luckily, her mom had gone with Winn’s idea of letting her pick the camp, so she had thrown a purposely disinterested “I’ll look at camps later” over her shoulder as she retreated to her room to do just that. She never defined later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now it was about two weeks after her discussion with her mom about going to camp. Ali decided that she had held out long enough for it to seem like she wasn’t enthused about the idea of being sent off to camp, so it was high time she told her mom her pick. After class that Friday, she walks to Zorelle like normal, but with a little more pep in her step, because she is so close to getting to put that camp onto her calendar. She would still have to do the application, but that looked like a breeze. Pushing open the backdoor to the restaurant, Ali spots her mom moving at a slightly faster than human speed between three pots, six frying pans, the oven, and the sink, where Winn was washing the dishes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey mom?” Ali says, trying and failing to get Kara’s attention. “IEIU,” she shouts, which finally gets Kara to slow down a bit and look at her a bit stunned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ali! Just who I needed,” Kara says, stopping only long enough to hand Ali a spoon and point to a pot. “Can you stir this?” Kara rushes off to pull some bread out of the oven.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure…” she says, moving over to the pot, when a thought suddenly hits her. “Can I take off my necklace, since it’s just us in here? I’d be able to help you better, and we all know how bad the Friday rush can be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kara slows down and looks at Ali, then at the kitchen, then back at Ali. “Fine, but only because it’s just us in here.” Ali is reaching for her necklace’s clasp with a smile when Kara puts a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>have</span>
  </em>
  <span> to keep it on at camp though. The whole time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kara is looking at Aileen with such a hard stare that Ali brings her hands all the way back to her sides. She gets it, she really does. Her mom must think she’s stupid if she thinks Ali would just walk around without her necklace on. If there’s one thing Aileen isn’t, it’s stupid, which also means she knows it’s best to keep it on. So she nods silently. She’s already two grades ahead, so she knows what it’s like to be looked at like she’s a freak. Imagine if her peers knew she could fly. She would be the laughingstock of the entire camp. When Kara starts to walk back toward the oven, Aileen finds her words again. “I actually wanted to talk to you about that,” she says, taking off her necklace and sticking it in her lead lined pocket. “I picked a camp.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kara turns toward her while still moving between the frying pans. “That’s great,” she says, “which one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um,” Ali hesitates, suddenly not sure where to start. “Well it’s in National City, y’know, where Aunt Alex lives.” Kara just hums in response. “It runs for six weeks,” Ali continues, encouraged by the fact that her mom wasn’t concerned about the distance. “It’s called the L-Corp Summer STEM Competition, so I guess it’s less of a camp and more of a comp-” Ali stops when she hears her mom drop a spoon, something she’s never done before. She turns to her mom and gives her a questioning look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kara just stares at Aileen, opening and closing her mouth a couple times before speaking. “Did you say L-Corp?” She finally asks. There’s a low whistle heard from Winn from across the kitchen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um, yes?” Ali replies, still startled by the sudden atmosphere change in the kitchen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kara looks at Winn then shakes her head. “No, no way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ali looks between Kara and Winn, wondering what information she’s missing. “No? Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winn jumps in before Kara can attempt to respond.“Would you mind if I talked to your mom alone?” He asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ali shrugs. “Sure,” she replies, sticking her earbuds in and moving to her corner.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It feels like it’s been forever when Winn finally comes over and taps her shoulder. When she looks up at him, he inclines his head toward Kara and gives Ali a small, encouraging smile. She gets up and walks over to her mother, who’s chewing on her lip and avoiding eye contact with Ali. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll let you go to the camp on two conditions,” Kara says. “One, you have to be really careful who you talk to.” Ali nods in agreement. “And two, you have to call me multiple times a week. I’m going to miss you.” This admission finally brings a smile onto Kara’s face, who is looking slightly less panicky. Ali looks at Winn, grateful for whatever he said to her mother, but wondering what it was that got her to change her mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ali looks back at her mom and smiles. “I still have to apply to get in, but I looked at the application and it doesn’t look too hard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Winn coughs to get Kara’s attention. “Does </span>
  <em>
    <span>she</span>
  </em>
  <span> really have to apply?” He asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kara responds by scowling and throwing a bean at him, which splatters on his forehead. She turns to her confused-looking daughter, the smile back on her face. “I’m sure you’ll blow that application out of the water. Is there anything I have to do?” She asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The camp is free, so all parents have to do is arrange transport to and from camp.” Ali looks around the nearly empty kitchen with wide eyes before stage whispering “can I fly there?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Commercial, yes,” Kara responds, not comfortable with her daughter using her powers to get to camp. “You’ll have luggage,” she gives as an explanation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ali just shrugs, she wasn’t expecting to be allowed to. “Worth a try.” She turns back to the soup she was assigned to stir and smiles.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Alex</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Still working on this, I promise, just veeery slooowly...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Alex</strong>
</p><p>Alex hates airports. There are too many people milling about, any of which could be a threat. Sure, there’s probably no one here that is a threat, but she’s been a little paranoid about tampering since her flight to Geneva almost went down.</p><p>Despite Alex’s great suggestion that Ali fly herself (which would have been much faster), Kara insisted Ali fly commercial “like a very non-alien human.” And so, here Alex stands in the middle of a potentially dangerous crowd waiting for her niece to exit the ‘secure area’. Sure, she could have just shown one of her slew of badges and gotten through the gate, but she had heard Kara pouting over the phone at the suggestion, so Alex had agreed to let Ali have the whole independent travel experience.</p><p>She’s about to go grab another coffee (who chooses to take an 11 hour flight that lands at 7 in the morning?) when she finally spots Ali.</p><p>“Ali!” she shouts, with no response. “Aileen!” she tries again, waving her arm this time, and is rewarded by a confused look on Ali’s face as she looks around. “AILEEN LOUISE ZORELLE!” she yells, causing Ali to startle, but apparently that was what it took to get her attention.</p><p>“Aunt Alex!” Ali smiles and gives her a hug. “I’ve missed you, you need to come visit more often.”</p><p>“Well,” Alex responds, only half breaking the hug. “Tell rogue aliens to stop attacking and I bet I’d have time.” She turns, her arm still slung over Ali’s shoulders, and steers her toward the baggage carousels. “Now how many suitcases did you bring; should I be worried about fitting them all in my car?”</p><p>Ali snorts, thinking of Alex’s SUV, which is decidedly un-small. “No, I think we’ll be just fine.”</p>
<hr/><p>They stop for breakfast (because kryptonians gotta eat), then head over to the National City Field Museum for the morning. After three hours exploring the museum, Ali’s stomach starts audibly protesting. They walk to the nearest ice cream shop and order four bowls of ice cream.</p><p>“Y’know,” Alex thinks out loud, pulling her spoon out of her mouth and pointing it at Ali. “I’m not surprised you’re doing a science camp, it runs in your blood—from both sides, actually”</p><p>Ali perks up and puts down her third bowl of ice cream. “You knew my dad?”</p><p>Alex sits up straight and looks at Ali, realizing what she had just said. “uh… I don’t think that’s something your mother wants me answering…” Ali responds with a pout that could rival her mother’s. Why did Ali have to get that gene from Kara?</p><p>Alex puts her hands up in surrender .“Okay yes I knew your… uh… other parent. In fact,” Alex excitedly points at Ali with her spoon again “my ex-girlfriend arrested her once. That was always a fun story…” Alex laughs, remembering that time they played Never Have I Ever with Kelly, who said, ‘Never have I ever been arrested’ and everyone else put a finger down. Kelly had been slightly alarmed, which led to each of them telling their arrest story.</p><p>Ali reaches over and shakes Alex out of her memory. “Her?” she asks. “So you’re saying I have two mothers?”</p><p>Alex’s eyes go wide as she realizes she slipped up again. “Your mother,” she starts, as she slowly puts her spoon back into her bowl. “Kara could snap me in half, so we’re going to pretend I didn’t say that.” With that, she gets up and throws away her bowl and spoon. She looks at Ali and tilts her head toward the road. “We’ve got to go if you’re going to be on time for the start of camp.”</p>
<hr/><p>Alex drops Ali off in front of the L-Corp building with strict instructions to call her if she needs anything. She watches Ali walk inside, then pulls away from the curb.</p><p>The next car that pulls up is a sleek Porsche. A girl climbs out of the car and stares up at the tall building with fierce determination.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Darcy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Twin 2 (with Lena)<br/>Darcy - Irish: dark<br/>Loren - Latin: honor and victory<br/>Luthor</p><p>Mainly set-up for the next couple of chapters, but important for understanding what's going on</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Darcy</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Darcy has been preparing for this her entire life. She has had her eye set on winning the L-Corp Summer STEM Competition since it was established when she was 4 years old. Every year, her mother would go over the winning project with her, teaching young Darcy about everything she’d need to know to show off her Luthor smarts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking up at the tall L-Corp building, she notices all the differences between this building and the one in Metropolis, which she’s used to. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Not quite home</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thinks. Darcy takes a deep breath, puts the smile back on her face and heads into the front doors, leaving her luggage in the holding area and taking a left to get to the auditorium. She passes by a table covered in nametags and quickly finds hers before heading into the large room and finding a seat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other students in the room, or at least the ones near her, are restless as they all wait for the introductory meeting to start. Within a few minutes, two women walk up the stairs to the stage and stand there, waiting for the room to quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello, my name is Maria, and this is Julie, and we’ll be your supervisors for the summer. Our job will be to run evaluations, place you into teams, and overall just supervise you. These fine young women,” Maria pauses to gesture at the 12 women who stand up from the front row of seats, turn around, and wave. “Will be your mentors. Each mentor will be over two teams, which means you’ll have to share.” The audience gives a small chuckle at that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. Formalities aside, let’s talk about the schedule.” Maria hands the microphone to Julie, and the screen behind them lights up with the schedule. “So today you have for settling into your dorms, in National City University’s Bell Hall. The university has been kind enough to let us use one of their residence halls, so we’re going to treat them nicely, right?” A general mutter of consensus echoes through the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Starting tomorrow you’ll be going through evaluation week, where your strengths and weaknesses will be assessed to put you in your competition levels and to ensure equally weighted teams. You’ll find your evaluation schedule on your dorm bed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The week after that, we have something new planned. This year, we’ll be putting all teams through a week of team building, to hopefully work out any team contention </span>
  <em>
    <span>before</span>
  </em>
  <span> you start working with fragile hardware.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Darcy sits up straighter in her seat at that announcement. That’s something she certainly hadn’t been planning for...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Following that, you’ll have a week each for planning, building, and testing. Competition day will come sooner than you think. After the competition, as I hope you are all aware of, there will be a two-week break for the judges to review footage of the competition and assign ranks. You are free to stay here, but going home is encouraged.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then come awards. Each member of a team that places will be guaranteed admission into the competition next year, assuming they’ll still be in high school. In addition, the first place in each level will include a $20,000 scholarship for each team member. Second place will be $10,000 scholarships, and third will be $5,000 scholarships.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now, I know a lot of you are waiting for me to give you the task you’ll be working with for the next couple of weeks. Those of you who’ve been here before know I’m not going to do that until Day 1 of planning week.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, since I think we’ve covered all we need to for today,” she pauses to glance at the other women, who nods. “Welcome to the 10th annual L-Corp Summer STEM Competition!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Darcy gets up from her seat and heads in the opposite direction of the flow of people over to her Aunt Sam, who she saw walk in mid-presentation. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Aileen/Darcy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please forgive my obviously made-up computer jargon. I'm def not a comsci major</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Aileen wakes up the morning after the introductory meeting, it’s not to the soft music that her mom plays while painting or the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen. She wakes to the sound of her roommate snoring and the blaring of a car alarm in the street below her window. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s still two hours before she needs to head over to the L-Corp building to start her placement evaluations, but there’s no way she’ll be able to fall asleep again. She’s just too excited. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ali finally decides to get ready early and take the extra-long route back to L-Corp. It gives her the perfect time to call her mom, who has been texting her almost non-stop since she landed in National City. Ali tells her mom about everything that’s happened since she landed (barring Alex’s slip up), which isn’t actually a lot. It takes two hours to tell only because Kara wants to know </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>, down to Ali’s opinions on the different ice creams she got yesterday.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s the longest conversation they’ve had in years. Ali didn’t realize it until now, but she really misses being away from her ieiu. It’s possible that this camp will challenge her in more ways than she had thought.</span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Darcy has a surprising amount of trouble finding her assigned evaluation room. The numbering system in this building is completely different from that of the Metropolis building, to the point that Darcy ends up on three different wrong floors before she finds the right room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she walks into the room—some sort of weird mix between a computer lab and a chemistry lab—there’s only one seat left. Darcy slides into the seat and looks her tablemate up and down. This girl looks young, maybe even younger than Darcy herself. She looks super uncomfortable in her chair, and keeps looking down at her fingers. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So much for being challenged here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the proctors hand out the first part of the math evaluation, Darcy laughs. Calculus. She can do this in her sleep. Darcy looks over at her tablemate, who’s squinting at her paper and scratching her head with her pencil. Darcy lets another laugh slip out and whispers, “well this is just </span>
  <em>
    <span>easy</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Darcy looks back down at her paper, so she misses when the girl looks up at her, taken aback by Darcy’s blatant arrogance. Darcy misses her confusion turning to fierce determination as she hunches over her paper and starts scratching out her solutions and filling out the corresponding bubbles. </span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Aileen doesn’t know what to think of this girl sitting next to her. Perhaps the arrogance is something that comes with being a child genius, but it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> something she had been expecting when she picked this camp. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As Ali does each problem on the calculus test, she flips between thinking in English, the language of the test, and French, the language she learned calculus in. It took a little effort when she was just starting the tests, but now she flies through the questions. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That girl was right, I guess,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ali thinks to herself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This test is pretty easy</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She finishes in half the time allotted, so she turns her paper over and starts doodling flowers on the empty backside of her test. When it’s finally time to pass their tests in, she has a solid garden covering the back of her test, which earns a dirty look from her neighbor. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes the proctors about three minutes to run all of their tests through the machine, during which everyone in the room is holding their breath. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Ali gets her test back, she sees a 120/120 stamped on the top and starts grinning like a mad woman. She looks over at her neighbor’s paper, and sees that the other girl missed one of the questions. High on the rush of getting every question right, Ali turns to her with a smirk, saying, “I thought you said it was easy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All the comment earns her is a huff. The other girl’s prior arrogance is gone, replaced by frustration as she flips through the test trying to figure out what she did wrong. Egged on by the other girl’s change in temperament, Ali leans closer and whispers “and my first language isn’t even English.”</span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Darcy doesn’t like coming in second place. She’s spent all of her life coming out on top, and she isn’t planning on ending her streak any time soon. Someone needs to put that girl in her place, and who better than Darcy herself? Luthors don’t lose, and Luthors </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely</span>
  </em>
  <span> don’t let people talk to them like that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a break for lunch, the campers gather back in the same room for the next part of their evaluations. This next part is where they show off their coding skills through a series of simulated robots. Darcy plants herself at the computer facing the desk of that girl, but one down, so she can see the look on her face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>About half an hour into the activity, Darcy weasels her way into the code of the girl and inputs an infinite loop that won’t crash her computer, but will make it really hard to work with. She can see the moment that the code takes effect in the expression on the girl’s face. Her expression gradually changes from confusion to annoyance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The girl turns and opens her mouth to call someone over, but then glances over at Darcy’s computer and sees the smug look on Darcy’s face. The girl shuts her mouth, and anger takes over her face. </span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Aileen wants to wipe that smug look off of the other girl’s face. Permanently, preferably. Going back through the editing history of her code, she sees a piece that has a different electronic signature than everything that she wrote. After tracing the signature, she determines that the extra code came from the computer hooked up to terminal C-19 in this room. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ali knows she’s hooked up to terminal C-22, and can see that her neighbors are hooked up to C-20 and C-24. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That means C-19 must be…</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course. No one knows her here, so it obviously was the girl that was sour about getting a lower score than her on the calculus evaluation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This is not the time or place to be making enemies. Ali just shakes her head, adjusts her glasses, and removes the loop, determined to keep the peace, at least on her side. </span>
</p>
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